Jury of Anifilm 2014
International Competition of Feature Films
Ferenc Cakó | HUN
Graphic artist, painter and writer Ferenc Cakó graduated in applied graphics at the University of Fine Arts in Budapest (MOME). He started his career in the film studio Pannonia as an animator, designer and director. He has created a wide range of films, series and commercials. His plasticine figurines like Sebaj Tóbiás are still popular today. Cakó, who received many prestigious awards, is an untiring experimenter in constant search for new forms of art expression and so in 1996 he was the first in the world to introduce the impressive technique of live sand animation, which the audiences can observe while still in the making. He is also a professor at the University of Applies Arts in Sopron.
Kristina Dufková | CZ
Animator and graphic artist Kristina Dufková has studied animation at the Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague – her award winning graduation film is called I Fell Asleep (Usnula jsem, 2008). She directed the story How the Giants got Extinct in The Bohemian Forest (Jak na Šumavě obři vyhynuli) included in the film Fimfarum – Third Time Lucky (Fimfárum do třetice všeho dobrého) which won the award for the best feature film for children at Anifilm 2011 in Třeboň. She has also illustrated books (A Bouquet of Folk Legends – Kytice, I Fell Asleep – Usnula jsem) and directed several music videos. In 2011 she held an exhibition of her works in Australia and New Zealand as a part of the exhibition of Czech and Polish animation.
Philippe Moins | BEL
Promoter of Belgian animated films and co-founder and co-director of the first Belgian animated film festival Anima Philippe Moins has studied art history at the Université libre in Brussels. After graduation, he worked for the Graphoui studio from 1982 to 1988. He has created hundreds of comic strips for Belgian newspapers and many books for children. He is publishing books, studies and articles on animated film such as the monograph of the famous director Raoul Servaise, the Folimage studio and the anthology Belgian Animation. He is also a lecturer at the École nationale supérieure des arts visuels (la Cambre) in Brussels.
Eija Saarinen | FIN
Eija Saarinen works as Senior Lecturer and Specialisation Manager in Animation at Arts Academy of the Turku University of Applied Sciences where she is the tutor and producer of student films. Animation programme in Turku started in 1994 and Eija, together with famous Estonian animation director Priit Pärn, was one of the developers of the program. Eija is active also in Turku Animation Project launched in September 2013 by West Finland Film Comission and she is a member of 100 Years of Finnish Animation Celebration Committee.
Mark Shapiro | USA
Mark Shapiro’s diverse marketing and communications career has taken him across the United States, working in brand development, advertising, public relations, film production and writing for companies including Nike, Town & Country Magazine and Upper Deck. In 2007, he joined LAIKA, where he manages brand strategies, including the marketing efforts for LAIKA’s corporate identity as well as the company’s feature films. A native of Seattle, Mark attended Emerson College in Boston and received his Bachelor of Arts in English from The Colorado College in Colorado Springs.
INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION OF SHORT FILMS AND STUDENT FILMS
Florence Miailhe | FR
Painter, director and pedagogue Florence Miailhe graduated at the École Nationale supérieure des Arts décoratifs in 1980 and since 2000 she has been lecturing animation at her alma mater. She directed nine short films such as Au premier dimanche d'août (A Summer Night Rendez-Vous, 2002), Les Oiseaux Blancs Les Oiseaux Noirs (The White Birds, Black Birds, 2003) made predominantly with paint-on-glass and sand animation. Her visually captivating films resemble classical paintings and regularly win awards at prestigious festival e.g. in. Cannes, Clermont Ferrand, Hiroshima and Espinho. She has also worked on the project Méandres (Meandres) consisting of adaptations of Ovid’s Metamorphoses.
Phil Mulloy | UK
Animator, graphic artist and live-action film director Phill Mulloy studied at the Royal College of Art. He started to make animated films at the end of the 1980’s . His satirical and grotesque films full of black humour openly refer to various taboos as religion, death and human sexuality. During his career, he cooperated with television channels such as Channel 4, Canal +, BBC and MTV. In dozens of his animated films and thematically connected mini-series like Cowboys (1991), The Ten Commandments (1994–1996) and The Chain (1998), Mulloy comments topical social values and issues in his unique concise way. He has received a number of awards.
Marek Skrobecki | PL
Graphic artist, scenographer and director Mark Skrobecki specializes in classic puppet animation. He studied animation at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw and at the Polish National Film School in Lodz. He made his first short film in 1988 but it was while working on the film DIM (1992) when he found his unique style and designed life-size puppets – an unprecedented novelty in Polish animation. He used his experience to create award-winning films such as Ichthys (Fish, 2005), Academy-award winning Peter and the Wolf (2006, directed by Suzie Templeton), Danny Boy (2010) and his latest film The Flying Machine (2011). He has also directed music videos of the Polish band Agressiva 69.
František Váša | CZ
Animator, screenwriter and puppet film director František Váša graduated in puppeteering at the Theatre Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague and took a scholarship at the French puppet centre in Charleville-Mézieres. He began his professional career in Jiří Trnka’s studio and in 1990 he co-founded the puppet studio aiF. Váša received awards in Canada, USA and in Europe for his work on various TV series (among others Pat & Mat and Yája and Pája), he has also animated a number of short and feature films by Czech and foreign directors, lots of music videos and commercials. He gives lectures on animation and leads workshops, plays puppet theatre and is the author of more than 50 sketches with puppets and masks at the Sklep theatre.
Wang Haiyang | CHIN
Painter Haiyang Wang comes from the province of Shandong and lives and works in Beijing where he graduated in painting and lithography at the Central Academy of Fine Arts. A number of solo or group exhibitions of his paintings have been held all over the world. His paintings, similarly to his short films often full of surrealist scenes arousing disturbing emotions, capture the stream of consciousness and explore human desires. His films Freud, Fish and Butterfly (2009) and Double Fikret (2012) have received a lot of attention abroad. Both films were made using a unique technique of drawing with pastels on a single sheet of sandpaper repeatedly erased and used again.